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Distributed Morphology and the Syntax/Morphology Interface Distributed Morphology and the Syntax/Morphology Interface David Embick and Rolf Noyer University of Pennsylvania ***Draft of October 25, 2004*** (To appear in G. Ramchand and C. Reiss eds., The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces, Oxford University Press) 1 Introduction: The Syntax/Morphology Interface A theory of the syntax/morphology interface is first, a theory of how ‘words’ and their internal structure – the traditional domain of morphology – relate to the structures generated by the syntax, and second, a theory of how the rules for deriving complex words relate to the rules for deriving syntactic structures. A prominent line of research in this area consists of approaches assuming some version of the Lexicalist Hypothesis. For present purposes, this is the claim that (at least some) words are special in ways that e.g. phrases are not, and that this ‘specialness’ calls for an architecture in which the derivation of words and the derivation of syntactic objects occur in different modules of the grammar (the Lexicon versus the syntax).1 While the ‘words’ derived in the Lexicon serve as the terminals in the syntactic derivation, there is a sharp division between syntax and morphology according to this approach. In this way, the interface between syntax and morphology in such a theory is opaque or indirect: there is no reason to expect the structure and composition of ‘words’ to relate to the structure and composition of syntactic objects in any transparent or for that matter systematic fashion. A second line of research advances the hypothesis that ‘words’ are assembled by rules of the syntax. Thus the ‘word’ is not a privileged derivational object as far as the architecture of the gram- mar is concerned, since all complex objects, whether words and phrases, are treated as the output of the same generative system (the syntax). According to this view, which we assume here, the theory of the syntax/morphology interface might better be said to be a theory of (1) the primitive elements of the syntactic derivation (the traditional question of the morpheme); (2) the principles governing the assembly of these primitives into complex objects (the question of what structures the syntax and perhaps PF rules can derive); and (3) the manner in which phonological forms relate to the primitives and to the complex objects constructed from the primitives. Such an approach allows for a transparent (or direct) interface between syntax and morphology, because it hypothesizes that the same generative system derives all complex objects.2 In the default case, then, the principles that govern the composition of ‘words’ are the same as those that govern the composition of larger syntactic objects. 1There are many senses of the term Lexical/-ism/-ist (see Aronoff (1994) for some discussion); our focus here is on the specific architectural claim that there exists a generative Lexicon in addition to a generative syntax. 2Phrasing this somewhat differently, there is a sense in which there is no ‘interface’ between syntax and morphology on this view, since there are not two distinct domains at play; see below. 1 The Syntax/Morphology Interface Draft of October 25, 2004 The theory of Distributed Morphology proposes an architecture of grammar in which a single generative system is responsible both for word structure and phrase structure. In particular, Dis- tributed Morphology attempts to make precise the claim that all derivation of complex objects is syntactic. In this way, this approach has much in common with other syntactic approaches to mor- phology, such as those advanced by Baker (1988), Pesetsky (1995), and Borer (2004) and related work. In respect to the interface between syntax and morphology, this architecture has a clear con- sequence: since the only mode of combination in the grammar is syntactic, it follows that in the default case, morphological structure simply is syntactic structure. This is the primary focus of our discussion below. For reasons of space, we will simply assume this non-Lexicalist perspective. Nevertheless, some clarifications are called for regarding this aspect of Distributed Morphology. It is often objected in discussions of non-Lexicalist versus Lexicalist analyses that the patterns analyzed syntactically in the former type of approach could potentially be stated in a theory with a Lexicon. This point is almost certainly correct, but at the same time never at issue. The arguments against the generative Lexicon are not arguments about generative capacity, or the formal power of the Lexicalist approach to state a pattern. Rather, they are arguments against the central thesis of Lexicalism, which is a thesis about modularity. The Lexicalist position, which posits two distinct generative systems in the grammar, can be supported only to the extent that there is clear evidence that Lexical derivations and syntactic derivations must be distinct. As such, specific arguments that are intended to support the Lexicalist position must show that a particular phenomenon must not be treated syntactially; the demonstration that a pattern can be stated in a Lexicalist framework simply does not suffice. A number of the central issues for this question are found in the area of operations on argument structure and related areas. Much of the impetus behind Lexicalist approaches to grammar stems from an interpretation of Chomsky (1970), in particular the idea (not actually advanced in that pa- per) that certain nominalizations must be created by rules that apply ‘in the Lexicon’, and not by syntacic transformation. However, as discussed in Marantz (1997), the analysis of nominalizations constitutes a case in which a Lexicalist account is forced to stipulate a pattern which follows natu- rally from an exclusively syntactic treatment.3 Again, whether or not the relevant patterns could be stated in the Lexicalist approach is not a matter of great interest: clearly the necessary stipulations can be made. The question is why– all other things being equal– one would maintain separate gen- erative systems in the face of such an argument, and given that the other functions of the Lexicon (mostly related to listing certain types of information) can easily be redistributed in the grammar (for specific proposals see 2). Thus while much of the§ current discussion of morphology and syntax is framed against a Lexi- calist background, it should be stressed that this is for reasons that are primarily historical, having to do with the development of the Lexicalist Hypothesis as a research program. At the same time, there is no reason to suspect a priori that the theory would be better if it contained two distinct generative systems: on the contrary, the burden of proof lies on the theory that proliferates generative mecha- nisms, i.e. on Lexicalist theories. We believe that the strictures imposed by the Minimalist Program (Chomsky (1993) and subsequent work) suggest the same conclusion. Minimally, the grammar must contain (1) a set of primitives, (2) a derivational system for combining these primitives into (a dis- crete infinity of) complex objects (3) an interface with the conceptual/intentional system (LF), and (4) an interface with the articulatory/perceptual system (PF). Anything beyond this, including a generative lexicon beyond a generative syntactic system, becomes suspect from this perspective. In the final analysis, the ‘two-module’ architectural stance reduces to the claim that sound/meaning 3A related argument is advanced in Embick (2004), with reference to the verbal/adjectival passive distinction, a dis- tinction which is taken in Lexicalist approaches to grammar to be the result of syntactic versus Lexical derivation. 2 The Syntax/Morphology Interface Draft of October 25, 2004 connections for ‘words’ are derived in a way that is ‘special’ with respect to how the syntax derives such connections. Articulated Lexicalist approaches make a number of precise empirical predic- tions, predictions which we take to have been disconfirmed. In conjunction with the idea that there is no conceptual argument in favor of a grammar with two generative systems, these empirical re- sults argue in favor of the architecture in which word-formation is syntactic. At the very least, the syntactic approach is the hypothesis to be investigated first, and the theory that we outline here constitutes an attempt to make this investigation precise. 2 Essentials of Distributed Morphology The architecture of the model of grammar that we adopt here is illustrated in (1). The syntax consists of a set of rules that generate syntactic structures, which are then subjected to further operations in the derivation of the PF and LF interface levels: (1) The Grammar Syntactic Derivation (Spell Out) Morphology PF LF We assume that every word is formed by syntactic operations (Merge, Move). The principles of morphology are therefore to a large extent the principles of syntax, because in the default case, the morphological structure at PF is simply the syntactic structure. Nevertheless, in more complex cases, which are in no way exceptional, additional PF processes may modify and elaborate syntactic structure in limited ways (see 4). For example, language- specific PF requirements may force the introduction of features and terminal§ nodes into the syntactic structure. We use the term Morphology to designate the set of such processes that are relevant for word formation; correspondingly, we sometimes employ the term morphological structure to refer to structures that are found at the PF stage of the derivation. Thus in the syntactic approach to morphology adopted here some aspects of word formation arise from syntactic operations such as head movement, which occur in the syntax proper, while other aspects of word formation are accounted for by operations that occur on the PF branch. It is this fact that has given rise to the term Distributed Morphology.4 While PF processes may be possible for certain aspects of word formation broadly construed, the important point is that such PF processes do not constitute a separate generative system for deriving words.
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